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Newgarden: Palou can still be caught in IndyCar points chase

Team Penske driver Josef Newgarden believes his Chip Ganassi Racing rival Alex Palou’s huge IndyCar points advantage can still be overhauled in the remaining races of the season.

Palou scored his third win of the season at Road America on Sunday, extending his lead to 74 points over his team-mate Marcus Ericsson.

In securing his team's 250th race victory, the 2021 champion is now 81 points clear of best non-Ganassi driver Newgarden.

But the Indianapolis 500 winner, who finished second on Sunday, shrugged off the deficit as the series approaches its halfway point at Mid-Ohio next month.

“Probably win by 200 points if you won nine races straight,” he said. “Yeah, I mean, it's pretty wide open still.”

Newgarden pointed to Palou’s consistent points scoring, even bouncing back to finish fourth in the Indy 500 after a pitroad collision with Rinus VeeKay put Palou in the wall and broke his front wing – which dropped him to last place for a time.

“It's kind of out of our control,” he admitted of Palou’s metronomic scoring.

“They've had a good run up to this point, right? They've not had a bad race. I think that's to be expected.

“We had an engine pop on us in the very first round. Everybody has a different story.

“If you look at their story, they've not had one bad race yet. When you have eight races in a row without a bad one, this is what happens points-wise.

Source: Autosport

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